When doctors disagree I will not presume to decide as to the necessity of granting medical diplomas to women, but why not “Women and Watch-work?” Is the Swiss girl more naturally artistic than the English? Is she more capable? Certainly not. It is instruction alone which constitutes her superiority. Let a woman be employed in that branch of industry for which she is adapted. Why there are parts of a watch which a woman can finish far better than the best workman. Talk of negro slavery, the tyranny of the workshop is more odious, more hateful in every respect. But I rejoice to perceive the dawn of a brighter day when a truer and higher civilization will threw open the doors of _Watch Manufactories_ and _Printing Offices_ to English women.
Ladies of St. Marylebone, I invite you to attend the Public Library Meeting at the Literary Institution, 17, Edwards Street, Portman Square, at 12 o’clock at noon, on Monday 18th June, 1860.
On this vital question I counsel you to throw off the absurd trammels and customs of fashion. The law allows you to vote for the Libraries Act, and I warn you that if you persist in clinging to delusion, if you permit yourselves to be overcome by indifference and listlessness,—if you “likes to be despised,” and prefer being tied and bound by the chains of fashion,—the day will come when you will bitterly repent such fastidious and disdainful behaviour. Read ANNA JAMESON’S “Communion of Labour.” Prisons, Reformatories, Schools, Hospitals, Workhouses, all engaged the attention of this noble person. Like Florence Nightingale she was in every sense a model woman. Yet those eyes, beaming with intelligence, have now lost their lustre, and are for ever closed, and the hand that wrote that admirable pamphlet is mouldering in its shroud. But though dead, she still speaks to you in terms more eloquent than any I can use. ANNA JAMESON would say to you, “Be true to yourselves and naught shall make you rue.” Believe me the custom of confining women to mean, or trifling pursuits is
“A custom More honour’d in the breach, than the observance.”
You who may be so powerful in society, why should you remain powerless? Why not _do what you can_ to slay this Demon Ignorance in St. Marylebone? Why should Central Africa and other far off Missions engross your FIRST attention? I exhort you to attend this Library Meeting, and _take your part in this good work_.